Episode 32: Liberating Transportation
We’re joined by Stephanie Gidigbi, a community champion and systems strategist. Among her many professional roles, she is developing a racial resilience training program, including focus on transportation equity.
Topics: Equity, Transit, Social Justice
Tags: Stephanie Gidigbi
Stephanie Gidigbi is CEO of North Star Strategies and directs Policy & Partnerships for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Healthy People, Thriving Communities Program. She also elevates social system change strategies as Policy Advisor for the Strong, Prosperous, And Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC) and serves on the Board of Directors for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA). She has worked, she says, at every level of government, from the City of Orange, New Jersey, to the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT).
On the podcast, Gidigbi touches on the recent transportation bill passed in the House, the Invest in America Act, calling it “a bold downpayment on equity, climate change and systems built more resiliently,” especially given that transportation is now our dirtiest sector in terms of air pollution, which leads to higher rates of asthma. She talks about how many of the laws and practices that shape our nation revolve around transportation, from Plessy v. Ferguson (a case about rail transportation) to the Montgomery bus boycott, to highways that divided communities. She also points out the often untold stories of resilience arising from difficult times. The bus boycott sparked “the first ride-share” and highway disputes were the birth of NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, which she calls “the Magna Carta of environmental policies and the first to center public engagement.”
She describes the work going on in several cities via the SPARCC program and the transportation leadership academy at USDOT as examples of bringing communities into the forefront of the often wonky and difficult world of transportation. “Most people don’t see transportation as a means to an end in helping transform communities but it is so critical in shaping public life.”
“Solutions are within us, in our respective communities, the places we love and live.
To the extent that we hold space for radical imagination, revolutionary thinking and putting forth bolder ideas we never saw as possible, our future will be bright.
No one’s coming to save us unless ourselves. It’s important that we get to work.”
— Stephanie Gidigbi